No longer Normal
by Quinnthekitty
Summary: Carlos has been experiencing odd dreams for six months, and soon finds himself facing those dreams...in real life. A mysterious job offer leads him to the town of Night Vale where he proceeds to discover exactly how odd the town and it's residence are.
1. The Dream

A/N:* this is my first fanfiction, I do not own these characters unless stated and all characters belong to the creators of the podcast/ novel of Welcome To Night Vale, I hope you enjoy, this will be a multi chapter story,so look for more chapters to come *

Carlos's world suddenly lights up in a purple haze. The young scientist looks around, alarmed, unable to remember where he is or how he'd gotten there. He looks around and can see nothing but desert and sage brush surrounding him. Normally in a situation like this people feel scared and confused but the longer he stays the more he feels weirdly comforted. Almost as if he was supposed to be here or had been before. Almost as if this place was welcoming him, as if it wanted him.

He feels something lightly strike his shoulder before hearing it hit the ground by his feet. He looks down to see what it was only to see a small green lizard on the ground, limp and lifeless. He studies it trying to find a wound or any visible cause of death but sees nothing the provides any kind of answer and feels a slight sadness from the poor, little, neon green creature. Spontaneously wondering where it came from, he slowly swivels his gaze upwards towards the sky.

Above him the sky is covered in a massive cloud, seeming to stretch and completely engulf the entire sky. The cloud gives off a soft fluorescent glow as well as a slightly ominous feeling that gives Carlos a weary fluttering in his stomach. The cloud appears to be constantly changing its colors from gorgeous hues of green to blue to pink to red. He stares at in awe, trying to think of any scientific explanation but at the moment comes up stumped, having a hard time thinking completely straight amidst the oddness of the situation.

Abruptly a burst of what sounds like radio static comes on in bursts behind him, causing him to spin around to look for the source. Much to his surprise, he sees a figure cloaked and hidden in shadows that come from seemingly nowhere. He attempts to speak but nothing comes out, as if his voice had been stolen from him which gives him a brief, panicked feeling. Carlos frowns at this, as slowly and cautiously begins to move towards the figure and the static noises, which seem to be coming from it. As he gets closer to the dark figure, the shadows almost seem to melt away from it and his breath catches.

A man sits before him on the ground, a radio sitting in his skinny jean covered, criss crossed lap, emitting the bursts of static. It doesn't take much to notice that the man was stunning, with a shock of white hair with shaved sides, and his deep purple eyes that looked like they could, and maybe did, contain galaxies, combined with a strong jaw and wiry frame. The man has an odd yet fascinating purple third eye, tattooed on his forehead, as well as tattooed tentacles and symbols snaking up his arms and under his half rolled up sleeves, as well as creeping up his neck from, sneaking out from under his shirt. The man wears a plain white button up shirt accompanied with black skinny jeans and suspenders connecting the two. His expression is easy going with a hint of something that looks almost like a thoughtful kind of longing. Without a word he moves one hand and switches a knob on the radio while Carlos remains starring at him in fascination, shock, and confusion.

"A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep, Welcome, to Night Vale." A smooth, deep, voice speaks from the radio and the man smiles at him and tilts his head as if he was the one speaking or the words were very familiar to him. In that moment Carlos can swear he sees the purple eye on the man's forehead wink at him. "We're waiting for you, Carlos." The voice in the radio says as the man eyes him in a mildly fascinating way with his eyes that are just as purple as the one on his forehead. He startles a bit at the radio voice saying his name but tries to keep his cool, which isn't particularly hard, for some reason the voice, despite knowing his name is oddly comforting, with the soothing and smooth way it talks.

He eyes the man back and attempts to speak but finds himself still unable to and instead settles for continuing to study the man, feeling an odd sense of being drawn to him. Slowly sneaking into his awareness, he begins to notice a low, quiet, small vibrating sound. The sound is barely noticeable but he still looks around as if in attempt to locate the noise but can see nothing around them but desert and what looks to be the faint outline of buildings in the distance. He glances at the man worriedly to see if he has noticed the vibrating but the man seems oblivious, and is now staring at him rather intensely.

"Join us, Carlos. I miss you." The man says in the same voice as the one that had been playing on the radio, filled with a combination of hope and sadness. The man gives him a sad look that Carlos can practically feel hurting his soul and the urge to do anything to make him happy takes over. A part of him points out that he's being stupid for feeling like this over a stranger, no matter how gorgeous he is, but another part fires back that he doesn't feel like a stranger.

Before he can further argue with himself he realizes the vibrating had begun to intensify and sounds almost familiar, though just out of reach of naming. As the vibrating becomes more insistent a hazy feeling settles over Carlos, and the light and color begins to start to fade and blur. Carlos frowns and scrunches his eyebrows in dismay and struggles to find his voice, sensing that what's taking place is coming to an end, much to his regret.

"What's going on?" He cries weakly, his voice coming out in barely more than a faded whisper. "I'm not ready to go!" he feebly attempts to reach out for the man. The man has no reaction, just watching him sadly with his deep purple eyes. "What's happening? What is this?"

The man is silent as the world around Carlos starts to fade to black, now almost completely dark. Carlos barely notices when the vibrating seems to abruptly to disappear. The man decides to speak again and Carlos struggles to hear his words.

"I'll be waiting for you, Carlos, my dear." The man's voice is barely audible and everything fades to black.

Carlos wakes up with a gasp and bolts upright in bed.


	2. A Strange Offer

He looks around his room rapidly in confusion, as he always does after the dreams, before, once again as always, coming to the conclusion that they are in fact dreams, and settling down. He had been having these dreams for six months, always beginning with the strange purple light and containing the radio voice somewhere within them, though what he saw tended to vary. Sometimes it was what seemed to be semi average life in a small city or town, though other times it was odd things like the strange glowing cloud, a cat in a men's bathroom, floating several feet above the ground, and once even a vast city underneath what had appeared to be a bowling alley. Despite all of the odd occurrences, the vibrating was new.

He tended to have these dreams regularly, first once a week but slowly increasing, appearing more and more often until he had begun to have them almost every night. He would always wake up confused by them but oddly curious and fascinated. How could his subconscious come up with something as interesting as the dreams? Being a scientist, he had always been creative to a certain point but never that much so. Floating cats? He didn't even particularly like or hate cats, so how random was it to include one? Let alone a floating one.

Regardless he didn't mind the dreams, they made things seem a bit more, interesting, and before, they had made for entertaining stories during his last few months of class before he had graduated collage. Now he had moved up a stage in life to where he had to grow up and be an actual adult and find a job. The dread of all newly fledged college graduates, though coming along with the slight sense of excitement that comes with all new things. He had been sending out applications for the past two months, though sadly to no avail. At this point he was becoming rather desperate, and would take almost any job, even if it wasn't in his preferred career field.

With a sigh he shoves a hand through his longish, messy, black hair and swings his legs out of bed. He puts his feet on the cold hardwood floor, knocking his phone off of his bed onto the cold surface in the process. With a small cringe at the coldness of the floor on the bottoms of his feet, he reaches an arm down and scoops up his phone, only to discover that he had missed a call sometime this morning. Remembering the vibrating from his dream he snorts in amusement. That explains the odd new occurrence. He had heard the vibrating in his sleep and included it into the dream. Sadly, he could not explain the rest of his dreams as easily, or at all. With a small shake of the head and a snicker, he stands up and stretches his arms above his head and opens his jaws wide in a yawn.

Before long he finds himself wandering into his kitchen in a sleepy, zombie like fashion and fumbles to start a pot of instant coffee. Bleh, instant coffee. Frankly, he hated the stuff but who had the time or motivation for actual, good tasting coffee? Certainly not him. He rubs at his eyes as he lets the coffee brew as he wanders through his living room and out of his front door. Once outside, not caring about the fact that he's in a pair of plaid pajama pants and a tank top or the fact that he lacks shoes, or even socks, he wanders off a crossed his yard to his mail box, almost enjoying the feeling of the grass beneath his feet. He opens the plain gray box and grabs its contents. Without looking at the envelopes in his hand, or giving them a second thought at the moment, he wanders off back inside his house.

Upon returning inside he half-heartedly tosses the envelopes onto the table before moving off to look for a mug. He quickly tracks down a science mug with cute little test tubes and beakers with faces accompanied by a cheerful morning greeting printed in a speech bubble. He pours himself a cup of coffee and goes and sits down at the table. Between sips of coffee he absent mindedly starts opening the envelopes and glancing through them, noting that most of them happen to be bills and declined job offers. Until he gets to an odd envelope.

The envelope doesn't seem out of the ordinary at first, but then he notices, instead of a regular stamp, the stamp is marked with a familiar looking purple eye symbol, though he can't exactly place the source. He carefully rips the envelope open at the top, careful not to damage the paper inside. Inside the envelope is a light purple paper, with regular black print a crossed it. He scrunches his eyebrow together in concentration and confusion as he reads the letter.

"Dear, Dear, Carlos. We know you have been sending in applications for a job of the scientific sort and we are happy to inform you that one has just opened up. We already have a house picked out for you and an escort waiting for you, John Peters, you know, the farmer. We are willing to give you the position of lead town scientist, seeing as you seem eager and well qualified to represent, and solve the mysteries of our little city, Night Vale. We eagerly await your arrival."

The letter is followed by a series of numbers that appear to be coordinates. Night Vale? He didn't remember applying there, yet the name sounds familiar. What a weird letter. Not to mention it was very unprofessional. Who sends letters on purple paper like that? What's up with the two dears? Shouldn't he be able to pick his own house? What scientific mysteries?

Question after question runs through his brain and curiosity fills him to the brim. There's no listed number to call or website to find the answers to his questions. Something inside him, maybe the burning sense of curiosity, or maybe just the desperate need for a job, wants him to go, wants him to go and find out that the letter means. Logically speaking, this could all be some sort of trap, some serial killer could be waiting for him at the end of the coordinates. But what if the letter was real? Sure, it was a tad bit odd, and very unprofessional but a job was a job. Especially if it's in his preferred field. It would be worth it…right?


End file.
